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REPENT! THE END IS NIGH!
Says the writing spray-painted on the wall of Hypothetic Alley.
The Alley is eerily deserted these days. Many of the shops are closed and locked, hastily hand-written signs ("Early storm closing," "Back for OoP," "Gone fishing...INLAND") hung in their windows. Old newspapers and discarded chocolate wrappers skitter across the cobbles, borne along by the disturbingly cold wind which has been picking up speed ever since sometime in September. Other than the howling of the wind, the only sound to be heard is the frantic hammering of those few intrepid shopkeepers who have already begun to prepare; they stand on rickety ladders, nailing thick protective boards up over their windows and doors.
Down at the shore itself, stalls have been left abandoned, the docks are desolate. Cigarette butts and grease-spotted wrappings litter the bases of the bins along the promenade, each one cheerily labelled "KEEP THEORY BAY TIDY!" (People have been far less willing to pick up the trash ever since the construction of the Safe House at the far end of the Bay.) A child's bucket and spade sits beside a half-completed sand castle on the empty strand.
Hoarse shouts of workmen drift down from the seawall above the promenade, where a host of citizens is gathered together, hefting huge bags of sand up onto the woefully inadequate barrecades. They yell and gesture and groan as they bustle, every last one of them casting frequent nervous glances above them, to the weather station flagpole on the headland high above the Bay.
Ever since September, there has been a flag flying from that pole.
A single red flag, with a black square in the center.
Small craft advisory.
Hurricane watch.
********************************************
Veronica walked along the strand, her head bowed over message number 37121. She was so engrossed in her text that she failed to notice the wild-eyed madwoman stumbling in the opposite direction until they had physically collided.
"Repent!" screamed the madwoman.
Veronica staggered backwards, staring. The woman was coated with grime and covered with scratches. Her clothing was ripped and tattered, her hair matted into a single snarl. Her eyes rolled wildly in their sockets.
"Repent!" she screamed again. "The day of reckoning is at hand! Oh, can't you smell it on the air? Can't you hear it in the wind?"
Veronica took another step backwards, but the woman reached out and caught her sleeve in one claw-like hand.
"Didn't you hear about the BBC interview?" she shrieked. "Oh, it is later than you think! It is later than you think!"
"Let go of me!" cried Veronica, tugging at her sleeve. "You—" The filthy remains of a set of battered featherboas around the woman's neck caught her eye. She stopped and stared.
"It's coming!" howled the madwoman. "Batten the hatches! Weigh the anchors! Lower the—"
"Elkins?" gasped Veronica.
The woman stopped. She blinked twice. Her grip on Veronica's sleeve loosened. "Is that really you, Elkins?"
Slowly, the woman let go of Veronica's sleeve. She raised her hand to her eyes, then turned quickly away.
"I..." she muttered. "I...did go by that name. Once. A long time ago. But that was before...before...OH!" She cried. "It's coming! The Author! She is coming back to claim what is Hers! She will divide the Righteous from the Unrighteous, and the Faith-ful from the Subversive! She will—"
"Elkins," said Veronica sternly. "I have been trying to find you. I did try to send you an owl, but it seems to have gone to Dicentra instead..."
"Owl?" Elkins shook her head slowly. "Oh, no," she muttered. "No owls reach old Elkins these days. No, no, no. Elkins is unplottable, you see. Every bit as unplottable as OoP." She laughed shrilly. "Unplottable, yes! Yes! Unplottable! Or so they said!"
"Elkins—"
"I..." Elkins shook her head again. "No, no, listen, listen to me, don't listen to me, just listen. You really mustn't be out here like this, you know. Not now. Not these days. It's just not safe here anymore. There's a storm coming, you see. Such a storm. Such a big storm." Her head rolled on her neck, and an insane grin spread across her face. "A Perfect Storm," she whispered.
Veronica shivered, then took a deep shaky breath.
"Elkins," she said firmly. "I am not worried about the storm. The storm does not concern me. Because I know, you see, that Arthur Weasley really was under the Imperius Curse."
"Arthur Weasley?" Elkins raised her head, something flickering in her eyes. "Imperius Curse?"
"Yes. I've been trying to—"
"There's..." Elkins swallowed hard. "There's quite a bit canon for that, you know. For Arthur Weasley. With Imperius Curse."
"I know. I've been trying to talk to you about it. Where on earth have you been? What happened to you?"
"I..." Elkins shuddered helplessly. "I've been having terrible dreams," she whispered. "Terrible, terrible. So terrible. I dreamt that it was two weeks from now, and Bloomsbury and Scholastic had both released the Order of the Phoenix simultaneously, as a 'Halloween Surprise.' And...and...and...and our membership soared to over ten thousand, overnight. There were three hundred new messages being posted every hour. And nobody was snipping. And Yahoo kept crashing. And...and...and..." She took a deep breath, then burst into tears. "And none of the FAQs were done!" she wailed. She dropped to her knees and covered her face with her hands, rocking back and forth and sobbing uncontrollably.
Veronica glanced down at the SYCOPHANTS badge pinned to Elkins' lapel. She sighed.
"Yes, yes, yes," she said soothingly. "There, there. Pull yourself together, Elkins. We all knew that it had to happen sooner or later. We've known that for years. It had to happen sometime. No good worrying about it, right? What's coming will come, and..."
"And we'll meet it when it does?" choked Elkins, sniffling.
"Yes. That's right. So just...er, take deep breaths. Try to relax."
Elkins nodded slowly. She took a few deep breaths, wiped her nose on her sleeve, and then hiccuped. Veronica shook her head.
"Dicentra sent me this old post of yours about Arthur Weasley with Imperius," she explained, handing the scroll down to Elkins. "But I'm a bit confused by it. Some of the canon seems to be missing. Do you think that you could help me with it?"
"Help you?" Elkins repeated numbly. "I...let me see." She took the scroll and unfurled it, her hands trembling. She squinted down at it. "Ah, yes," she said hoarsely. "Message 37121. Yes. Canonical evidence for the supposition that Arthur Weasley was a victim of the Imperius Curse during the war. Yes. Yes, yes, it's all coming back to me now."
"Is it all there?"
"Well, let's see now." Elkins reached up to straighten her bent and mangled spectacles. "Evidence that there really were genuine victims of the Imperius Curse. Yes, that's right. Mulciber was said to specialize in the Imperius. Both Hagrid and Sirius talk about the terror of not knowing who was really trustworthy back then. So it certainly does seem that there were real Imperius victims, as well as all of those DEs..."
"Yes," said Veronica quietly.
"And then we have Ludo Bagman's trial. That the DEs bothered to target Bagman suggests that younger ministry officials were often chosen as targets for persuasion or other forms of coopting..."
"Yes."
"And then there's all of this canonical suggestion that Arthur Weasley might hold a particular grudge against Lucius Malfoy. That could just be due to political differences, of course, as well as to lingering schoolboy rivalries. But it could also be because Lucius falsely claimed the same excuse to which Arthur had a truly legitimate claim."
"Yes."
"And then there's Crouch/Moody's DADA class..."
"Oh, I really like that part!" Veronica interjected. "I love the symmetry (as you described it) of that scene. It says so much about Moody!Crouch that he brings attention to Neville in regards to Cruciatus (which for some reason is always Crustaceous in my head), and Harry in regards to AK. It just adds a nice parallel that if Arthur had been enslaved at some point by the Imperius that he call on Ron."
Elkins blinked, then smiled. "That's always been my favorite part too," she admitted shyly. "It's the lynchpin of the entire theory, really." She glanced back down at the scroll in her hands. "And then there are those hints of a Weasley vulnerability to Imperius..."
"It does make sense that some families might be more vulnerable to the Imperius curse," said Veronica. "After all children of alcoholics are more likely to be alcoholics. Perhaps there is a gene that some have that make them less able to fight off that curse. That would explain why Ron has a more difficult time with that curse in DADA class."
"It could be," agreed Elkins. "Also, Ginny succumbed quite readily to Riddle's diary, which would seem to be a similar type of magic, don't you think? Mental domination. You really do have to be careful with this one, though," she warned, looking up owlishly from the scroll. "This one can get you into some trouble. A lot of people balk when it comes to this piece of canon, because they don't like the idea that such a weakness might be genetic, rather than a matter of pure personal willpower. They find that notion very thematically shaky. And many people also point out that none of the students in Harry's class has very much luck with the Imperius Curse..."
"Yes, Susanne said that," said Veronica. "She provided this canon, from Chapter Fifteen:
Lavender Brown imitated a squirrel. Neville performed a series of quite astonishing gymnastics he would certainly not have been capable of in his normal state. Not one of them seemed to be able to fight off the curse, and each of them recovered only when Moody had removed it.
"Susanne has a point," admitted Elkins.
"Yes," said Veronica. "But Susanne also gave us this bit of canon, from the same chapter:
"Yeah, I know," said Ron, who was skipping on every alternate step. He had had much more difficulty with the curse than Harry, though Moody assured him the effects would wear off by lunchtime.
So while it's true that nobody other than Harry could resist the curse, Ron is still the only person that JKR specifies actually suffering from lingering after-effects after the class!"
"Why, yes!" Elkins flashed a slightly startled smile. "Yes! Well done!"
"But as for myself," Veronica continued thoughtfully. "I think Moody is the key to this whole theory. Why was it Arthur who had to help out Moody the morning the kids left for Hogwarts?"
"An excellent question!" exclaimed Elkins, sitting up straighter. "And why is Molly so quick to rebuke the Twins for making fun of the paranoid old coot? In fact, I think that I talked about that somewhere in this post..."
She looked down at the scroll in her hands, then frowned. She turned it over. She shook her head.
"Now that's odd," she said. "I could have sworn that...OH! Oh yes, I see now. This is only the short version. That's why you couldn't find all the canon in it."
"That's the short version?"
"Yes. There's a longer one that I posted later on. One with more canon. And options on Missing Weasley Child and Seventh Son, as well. And even a Filicide!Arthur option, if you like that sort of thing."
"I don't," said Veronica rather severely, frowning at Elkins' bloody featherboas.
"I'm sure that I have it here somewhere..." Elkins fished about in her pockets, then pulled out an even thicker document. "Ah, yes. Here it is."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/40168
"This one also adds Arthur's reluctance to expose himself to the Veela's charms at the QWC," explained Elkins, handing it up to Veronica. "And evidence of a Voldemort-related skeleton in the Weasley family closet. And—"
"And Moody?" asked Veronica excitedly.
"And Moody."
"Moody and Arthur's relationship interests me," said Veronica. "It could just be that they are old friends, but my gut tells me there is something more here. Perhaps, as I think you suggested (forgive me if it was someone else), it was Moody that investigated his case. I personally don't see Moody doing much investigating; I think perhaps he "caught" Arthur, or the person doing the spell, and broke the spell. Still, I think Moody was involved in clearing his name, thus the deep respect on Arthur's part."
"Hmmmm." Elkins thought about this for a moment. "Well, I do think that Moody was probably an investigator," she said. "Certainly Snape seems utterly unsurprised at the idea that Crouch/Moody might be searching his office. And when Crouch/Moody congratulates Harry and Hermione on having the right mindset to become Aurors, he's talking about investigative thinking, isn't he? Detective work.
"But still," she added. "Even if you're right, even if all that Moody did was to bring Arthur in for questioning—you know, without actually AKing the poor man or Crucio'ing him or using the Imperius to make him come quietly—well, that in and of itself would have been enough to earn Arthur's gratitude, I should think. After all, we know how some Aurors were behaving themselves back in those days. So whether Moody actually investigated Arthur's case or helped to break the curse or merely apprehended him, it still works out."
"True," said Veronica.
"Of course," added Elkins. "This canon is the one that tends to bring all of those 'Arthur Weasley Was Himself Once An Auror' people out of the woodwork. I've never cared for that one myself, although its adherents are lovely people, and they do scout up some interesting canon. Still. Imperio'd!Arthur just makes more sense to me."
"There's no reason he can't be both," pointed out Veronica. "He could have been an Auror and under the Imperius Curse."
"Oh, I suppose so," said Elkins irritably. "I just don't like Auror!Arthur, that's all. It doesn't work for me at all on the grounds of characterization. But whatever. If you like Arthur as an Auror, then that's okay. De gustibus, and all that."
"I have another piece of evidence for Imperio'd!Arthur, I think," offered Veronica shyly.
"You do?" Elkins brightened. "What is it?"
"Well," said Veronica. "Another idea, perhaps part of the reason Arthur never advanced far in the MOM, apart from his love of all things Muggle, is that he is still partly ashamed of what he might have done--even though he wasn't conscious of his actions."
Elkins thought about this for a moment. Then, suddenly, she smiled. She rummaged through her pockets, pulled out a small canon, and laid it down on the sand with an ill-concealed air of triumph.
"How's that?" she asked.
The canon read:
"There is work to be done," he said. "Molly... am I right in thinking that I can count on you and Arthur?"
"Of course you can," said Mrs. Weasley. She was white to the lips, but she looked resolute. "We know what Fudge is. It's Arthur's fondness for Muggles that has held him back at the Ministry all these years. Fudge thinks he lacks proper wizarding pride."
"Now why is Molly so quick to leap to her husband's defense like that?" asked Elkins excitedly. "She sounds just a wee bit defensive there, don't you think? She's very keen to pin her husband's lack of promotion on his political beliefs, and on Fudge's. But why must she feel the need to say as much? And why bring it up right after Dumbledore has asked if he can count on them? And why is she white to the lips? What is she really responding to with this statement?"
"She's responding to what she fears might be Dumbledore's implication that Arthur cannot be counted on because he was once under the Imperius Curse," answered Veronica promptly. "And to the unspoken implication that his lack of advancement in his job might be due to his unfortunate past, rather than to Fudge's political bias."
"Yes!"
"Imperius Curse," said Veronica simply.
"Imperius Curse," agreed Elkins.
They smiled at each other.
"Oh!" Elkins jumped. "I nearly forgot! I have a new Imperio'd!Arthur canon as well." She reached into her pockets again. "Actually," she admitted, "I outright stole this one from Eileen Lucky_Kari. But since we're on this topic... Ah. Here it is."
She pulled out another small canon, this one from PoA, and lay it on the sand beside the first. This one read:
"Forget it, Harry," said George bracingly. "Dad had to go out to Azkaban one time, remember, Fred? And he said it was the worst place he'd ever been, he came back all weak and shaking.... They suck the happiness out of a place, dementors. Most of the prisoners go mad in there."
"Curious, isn't that?" asked Elkins. "Why does someone in Misuse of Muggle Artifacts visit Azkaban? That doesn't really seem part of his job description, does it? And George's phrasing is rather ambiguous as well. It's possible that he's just recounting something that their father once told them happened, rather than an actual memory. Did the Twins actually see their father come back all weak and shaking? Or is George just saying that Arthur said that he came back weak and shaking? Is George reminding Fred of an actual event, or of being told an anecdote? Could Arthur have altered the details slightly, so that he could tell the Twins about Azkaban without actually admitting that he'd ever been imprisoned?"
"Why would Arthur want to tell his children about Azkaban at all?" asked Veronica.
"If you had children like the Twins," answered Elkins grimly, fingering her PRATTLESNAKES badge. "Wouldn't you want to impress upon them the horrors of Azkaban?"
"Well...maybe," conceded Veronica dubiously. "Maybe I would. But Arthur was acquitted, surely. So would he ever really have been guarded by dementors?"
"Yes, quite likely he would have, because in the Penseive scene, Barty pleads with his father not to send him back to the dementors, even though he is not found guilty until the end of the scene. So it would seem that prisoners are held by the dementors even while awaiting trial. And that means that even though Arthur was eventually acquitted, he still could have spent some time in Azkaban, the poor man."
"LAW CAMERA," murmured Veronica.
"What?"
"Lovable Arthur Weasley Controlled And Manipulated by Evil Riddle Anagram."
Elkins' jaw dropped. "You acronymed Imperio'd!Arthur?"
"Twice. I also came up with DARE DEVILS - Dear Arthur Ruthlessly Enslaved by Death Eater Villains to Instigate Lamentable Situations. It's all in the letter I sent you. The one you never got."
"Sorry," said Elkins. "Yeah. Um. Sorry about that. I was, er...I was..." She looked down at herself and winced. "Um," she said. "I'm really rather a mess, actually. Aren't I."
"You are, rather," said Veronica, not unkindly. "But what I really wanted to know is: why does this theory not have a vessel? Why does it not have a name? Why couldn't I find it in any of the Alleys?"
"Well, nobody ever really cared enough about this theory to turn it into a vessel. Usually poor old Imperio'd!Arthur just gets treated as a food item. Teacakes, you know. Crunchy canony goodness. A filling and nutritious breakfast. That sort of thing."
"Well, what good is that?" demanded Veronica crossly. "I want to see this theory sailing out there in the Bay! Why isn't it?"
"It's not my fault that no one ever made it into a ship! I couldn't do it myself, you know. It just isn't done. So I waited and waited for someone else to make it into a vessel. I hinted and I hinted. For months on end. But no one ever took the bait. Unless, that is..." Elkins looked away, blushing slightly. "I mean, unless...you know. If you...that is, only if you really wanted to, of course..."
"I don't know how."
"No?" Elkins blinked. "Oh," she said. "Well, you just need to pick a nautical metaphor to represent the theory. You need to literalize it, you know. Concretize it. Give it flesh. Sort of like Voldemort's rebirthing ritual. Except, er...less nasty, of course. Usually." She picked herself up off of the beach and started brushing the sand off of her knees. "So if you'll just give me time to work the terribly complicated and involved Literalysis ritual..."
"Yes?"
Elkins smiled slightly. "Actually, I was lying about it being complicated and involved," she said. "Look out in the Bay."
Veronica turned and looked out to sea. Far out in the harbor, a large trimaran bobbed and lurched in the uncharacteristically choppy waters.
"Why a trimaran?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Because a trimaran is a ship with three hulls? For those three Unforgivable curses in the DADA class? Symmetry? Although really, I'm not altogether sure whether three of something can technically be called symmetry. But..." Elkins sighed. "Yeah, okay. The trimaran's lame. Sorry. It was the best I could come up with. After all, you can't expect miracles, can you? Given that only two pages ago I was a gibbering lunatic, I think that I'm doing rather well, myself."
"No, no," Veronica hastened to reassure her. "It looks fine, Elkins. Really. I'm very impressed."
"You most certainly are," agreed Elkins grimly.
"What?" Veronica blinked as Elkins advanced on her. "What?" she cried. "Ow! What are you—"
"I'm impressing you. There." Elkins stepped back, tilted her head to one side, and then nodded. "Perfect. You make a lovely Captain."
"What?" Veronica raised a hand to the hat that Elkins had just shoved onto her head. "I..."
"The trimaran's yours, Captain. I bequeath it to you. Now, you'll want to remember to add those two new canons." Elkins gestured down to the two new canons lying on the beach. "And to tighten the screws on some of those old ones as well. Especially the Weasley Vulnerability To Mind Control. That's where you're weakest, you know, especially once the CRAB contingent comes out in force. You'll also want to—"
"Wait! Hold up! I'm not sure that I want to—"
"Too late. This is an Imperius Curse theory, after all. So its Captain really has to have been ushered into service against her will, don't you think? It's only proper."
"But isn't this really your—"
"Look," sighed Elkins. "I'm really not very good at Captaining, to tell you the truth. It just doesn't suit my persona. TBAY!Elkins is a mad subversive theorist with histrionic tendencies, not an authority figure. Whenever people try to make her into an authority figure, things get ugly. Trust me. You so totally do not want to go there."
"But—"
"The trimaran wound up rather larger than I intended, but I think that it will have to be, just to house all of those crewmembers that I just know you're going to be recruiting."
"But—"
"You'll do a great job. I just know it. Just don't forget to man the canons. And save me a stateroom, if you would. And a seat at the Captain's table. And listen...let the Filicide!Arthur and the Auror!Arthur and the Seventh Son people have their own quarters, okay? Even if you don't much like their versions of this theory, inclusivity is always a wise policy. Just look at how well it worked for the Good Ship LOLLIPOPS!"
"I—"
"I'll bet Richelle will do a great job of keeping her fellow FEATHERBOAS-wearing Filicide fans in line. She may be bloody-minded, but she's also compassionate. Watch out for the Big Bang Destroyer. Imperio'd!Arthur is pretty Bangy, but you still don't want to let yourself get tied too closely to the Destroyer, because then you'll have to worry about Cindy and her Big Paddle. Oh. And don't serve too much PIE."
"Pie?"
"PIE. Percy Is Evil. I absolutely adore Percy. So if I hear too much Evil!Percy talk coming from this ship, I'll be forced to come back and scuttle it. Understood?"
"Um..."
"Oh," said Elkins. "Right. And one last thing, Captain. I'd see to those lifeboats, if I were you. Just in case, you know. Just in case. Because there is a storm coming."
"Yes," sighed Veronica. "So I've heard."
**************************************
Elkins
Posted to HPfGU by Elkins on October 13, 2002 4:18 PM
3 comments (link leads to main site)
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